Boycott

by Colin Murphy

  Arthur had told her once that Charles held no contempt for the peasants. He distrusted them, certainly, but was emotionally indifferent to them, as one might be to a sheep. But as a result of that terrible affair involving Mary, and her tragic, lonely death at the age of nineteen, Charles Boycott’s distrust of the peasant had turned to malice. And it was no longer the broad notion of the universal peasant at which his hostility was directed, but the Irish Catholic peasant. Annie believed that it was this secret malevolence of his that drove him now to rail against every utterance of the Land League and to treat his tenants and labourers with disdain. He would make them pay for the wounds that he would never admit he bore.

  She supposed he took solace in his contempt of the Irish or of Catholicism; or if not solace, perhaps it acted as a shield. She could not bring herself to loathe an entire race, especially her own, because of what had happened with Mary. As the years had passed since their daughter’s death, she had endured her husband’s open bitterness only because she knew she had shared in its inception; she herself had played a significant role in Mary’s estrangement. But unlike Charles, she refused to allow bitterness to harden her heart. Instead, she simply bore the guilt in silence, and prayed often to God and to Mary for forgiveness.

  The world went along on its way, ever-changing, joys and tragedies adding more to its sum. But Charles Boycott remained locked in a prison of his rearing, his culture and his personal bitterness. His deep-seated prejudice became out-dated and unfashionable, even among Britain’s ruling elite.

  As an Irish-born woman of the ascendant classes and one who had witnessed the famine years close-up, Annie believed that she had a greater insight into the current Irish mind and character than all the politicians, strategists and intellectuals in Westminster put together. Back in the late 1840s the potatoes had failed year on year, but a seed was sown in every Irish man, woman and child that had survived that horror, and it had grown and flourished. The Irish people had watched as the kingdom of which they had supposedly been an integral part had all but abandoned them to the brutality of mass starvation, as sure a means of fostering discontent, hatred even, as any on this earth. Charles and most of his kind had grown up in England, far from the abomination of those years. She had witnessed it. The Irish had suffered it.

  Of one thing she was certain: the famine had been a watershed. Change was coming by either fair means or foul. She could see it in people’s eyes, hear its subtext in their voices and sense it on the wind. If Britain’s rulers could grasp even a little of what she knew, they’d have the sense to hasten and to help that transition. If not, then revolution and bloodshed was certain, sooner or later.

  Did she love him still? She wasn’t sure that she had ever loved anything more than a dream, the wish for a man who, as the years passed, would grow dearer in her heart. But their daughter had died and all hope that she would ever find that man had vanished. Instead, she was left with Captain Charles Boycott. But for all his faults, and they were legion, he’d always provided for her, never struck her, to her knowledge and belief had been faithful, and, she suspected, were it ever asked of him, would lay his life down for her. And as was the duty of a woman of her class, she would stand by him to the end, come what may.

  Dawn was just touching the horizon when Annie awoke to find herself alone in the bed. Worry gripped her as she pulled a robe about her and hurried down the stairway clutching an oil lamp, which threw long, dancing shadows on the floor and walls as she glided along. After an increasingly fraught search she finally found him seated at the table in the kitchen where the servants dined, a cup and pot of tea before him, along with several newspapers of various vintages. His eyes were heavy, his clothes dishevelled, the slump of his shoulders more pronounced. He looked up with surprise at her approach.

  ‘Annie, dear, what are you doing down here?’

  ‘Charles, I may more properly ask the same of you. Have you not slept?’

  He shook his head and tapped the newspapers. ‘Couldn’t sleep. Was reading and came down to make some tea, revive me before I return to the fields. I felt I should get the day off to an early start. Show those blaggards I won’t be trifled with.’

  ‘But Charles, you can’t possibly work without sleep! You’ll kill yourself!’

  He tapped one of the newspapers, as though he hadn’t heard her. ‘Do you know that terrorist Davitt has been encouraging the masses to blacklist anyone who takes up a farm from which someone has been evicted? It’s sedition, if you ask me.’

  ‘Charles!’

  He looked up as if he was suddenly aware of her presence. ‘Yes, dear?’

  ‘What are you doing? It’s five a.m.!’

  He nodded. ‘You’re right. I should get to work. Can’t let this blasted Land League get the better of us. You and the others follow when you’ve eaten.’

  Annie grasped his arm as he started to rise. ‘No, Charles.’

  ‘What do you mean, no?’

  Annie inhaled sharply and sat in a chair beside him. ‘I mean Charles, that if you wish it still, if you wish your wife to work like a common labourer from dawn to dusk, I shall do as you ask. But I won’t ask it of the others. I feel ashamed our own flesh and blood were dragged into it yesterday. I won’t allow it.’

  He clutched a handful of the newspapers.

  ‘Won’t allow it? But what of these Fenian scoundrels? And the financial loss?’

  ‘Charles. Do you really expect your niece and nephew to work as labourers until Christmas? What of William’s schooling? And the household? How are we to run it without Maggie? Consider the reality, Charles. You can’t defeat Parnell and Davitt and the entire Land League on your own.’

  He stared at her in silence for a few moments before grunting and turning his eyes from hers. ‘I simply cannot submit to their demands. I cannot!’

  Annie sighed and began to rise wearily. ‘Then I suppose I had better go and change and ready myself for a day of hard labour.’

  She was at the steps when his voice halted her.

  ‘Very well then. Have it your way.’

  She turned and met his eyes. The phrase implied his submission was her doing. It was the best she could expect, that much she had learned.

  ‘Thank you, Charles.’

  ‘Oh don’t thank me, Annie. Once I acquiesce, it will simply encourage them and there’ll be no end to their demands. It’s just what he wants,’ he hissed, tapping the name ‘Parnell’ in a newspaper headline. ‘This, my dear, is just the beginning.’ With that he scrunched the page in a ball and hurled it angrily across the room.

  CHAPTER 7

  I was wholly unprepared for the spectacle which greeted our eyes at Aughleen. Here were collected three or four hundred emaciated people in various stages of fever, starvation and nakedness; the majority of whom were evicted tenantry. Many, too weak to stand, were lying on the cold ground, others squatting on the bare turf to hide their naked limbs. Some of the children and old people were dying, and I was informed that the worst had not made their appearance, as many were too ill to crawl out of their hiding places.

  –A Visit to Connaught in the Autumn of 1847, James H Tuke

  In the neighbourhood of Newport a poor man named Mulloy was found on the roadside. His emaciated frame betokened that his death was the result of want. On the same day, the body of James Brislane was found at Kilrimmin. On Friday last a poor man died at Deradda of actual hunger, leaving a family to follow in rapid succession. During the past week Mr. O’Grady, coroner, held inquests on the following persons: Anne Philibin, Patt Hemnon, Francis Gannon, Jordan Morrison, Anne Teatum, Patrick Corey, Thomas Costello, Patrick Maughan…

  –The Mayo Constitution, 19 February 1848

  OCTOBER 1848

  They saw the first of the dead just a short step along the road to Louisburgh. At first they thought the man was drinking from the lough, lying on the shore, face pressed into the frigid waters. They were immediately cautious, as their meagre supply of food wouldn’t str
etch to feed another. But when the man didn’t stir at their approach they exchanged nervous but inquisitive looks. Thomas approached him with halting steps and ventured a ‘Hello?’ but got no response. He reached down, took the man by his shoulder and pushed him over. They recoiled as one at the sight of the half-eaten face, ragged grey flesh, bone protruding from his chin. He’d come to quench a thirst and died there, the tiny water creatures feasting on his flesh for God only knew how long.

  ‘Let’s keep moving.’ Thomas pulled Owen back towards the dusty track, almost having to wrench his younger brother’s eyes from the scene.

  They continued along the road, the day grey but dry. With each step Owen was aware of a growing sense of loss as he felt the only life he’d known slip away; a life which had, until the famine, been relatively contented.

  The Doolough valley in which they walked was as magnificent a place as any man might wish to behold. The steep mountains on either side of the lough seemed immense to him. The lough ran two miles to the north-west, almost half a mile wide, bounded by the plunging rocky escarpments of Barrclashcame to the east, Ben Lugmore to the west and Ben Creggan to the south. To the north towards Louisburgh the mountains receded into gentler slopes and then an open expanse of flat lands until Clew Bay and the ocean beyond. In the past he’d marvelled at the valley’s silent majesty and wondered at the depths of the lough, which reflected the jagged slopes, grey and green with splashes of yellow furze and purple heathers. Now as he walked, each tortuous step gave him cause to wonder if he’d ever see its like again.

  Progress was slow. They covered barely a mile in the first hours, although the road they travelled was as flat as the lough’s surface, hugging as it did her north-eastern shoreline, yet each step was taken as though they were climbing the precipitous slopes that surrounded them. So wasted were their muscles that they seemed to have forgotten the elementary function of walking.

  ‘Look.’

  Thomas pointed out into the lough, where a solitary boat floated, almost motionless in the still water. They listened, and for a moment all was so quiet that Owen imagined he could hear his own heart beating.

  ‘There’s someone in it,’ Owen muttered, and took a step closer to the water’s edge.

  The arm of a black jacket was draped across the side of the boat and a skeletal hand protruded from it, the extended fingers brushing the water.

  ‘Dead, whoever it is,’ said Thomas dispassionately.

  The broadening valley to the north presented a barren aspect: reed-like pockets of growth nearest the water, and beyond that a bog whose pale greens and browns were somewhat lightened by the occasional hint of heather. They trundled on mostly in silence, eyes peeled for any person’s approach, but the road was strangely quiet. As a mist descended, they were given to remarking on imagined or real figures of people in the distance, dots of black that appeared and vanished like smoke in the wind.

  Two hours further and the soupy mist had settled over their heads. The mountains behind them were all but invisible and the lower hills on either side just ghostly shapes through the grey vapours. Light rain dampened their clothes and the first chills of the evening air began to settle into their bones. They rested again at a narrow bridge that spanned the Carrownisky River and contemplated their progress, which had been pitiful.

  ‘We’ll have te find somewhere for the night,’ Thomas remarked as he looked into the darkening sky, wiping the accumulated drizzle from his hair and face with the sleeve of his jacket. ‘We’ll eat then.’

  ‘We could sleep under the bridge here.’

  ‘I thought that, but there’s a fierce wind here most nights, we’d probably freeze te death before morning. We couldn’t even light a fire ’cause you’d be able to see it for miles. We don’t want to attract attention.’

  In matters practical, Owen conceded his brother’s good sense, but he felt desperately tired and his stomach craved renewed sustenance. The awful burps of fetid air were beginning to recur and with them the sense of dying from within.

  ‘We’ll find an abandoned cottage and–’ Thomas interrupted himself and listened to what they both heard with unmistakable clarity: the approach of a carriage.

  ‘Maybe they could give us a jaunt to Louisburgh.’

  ‘And maybe they’re English soldiers who’ll cut our throats. Under the bridge, quick.’ Thomas was already up and clambering down the steep muddy bank to the fast-flowing stream, Owen skittering hastily down behind him. They huddled under the old stone arch, pressing tightly against the wall to keep from sight. They listened to the slow approach of the vehicle, the horse’s tramp halting and irregular, the carriage struggling to progress in the muddy, rutted track. Owen could feel Thomas’s body pressed against his back, could feel his breath upon his neck as he used to do when they’d shared a bed as children. Thomas placed a hand on his shoulder and he closed his eyes. At that moment he had no fear, but a sudden awareness that he loved his brother and that Thomas loved him, and all that Thomas had done was for his protection and survival. He opened his eyes and tilted his head a fraction to get a partial view of the track. The cloud that had settled was impenetrable to the eye beyond twenty yards and from this he saw a single horse appear, snorting in protest at its exertions. Then a voice called ‘whoh!’ and behind the animal came a jaunting car upon which perched two men, the driver attired in coarse clothing and flat cap with a deeply lined red face, the other a gentleman in a top hat, dark overcoat, and upturned collar and tie, with a blanket across his knees. Thomas gripped Owen’s shoulder and pressed his head back against the cold stone.

  The carriage started across the bridge when an Englishman’s voice halted its progress. ‘Stop here a moment, Mahoney. My back is throbbing from the bouncing and I need to stretch.’

  The brothers listened as the two men dismounted. There were mutterings they couldn’t make out above the rush of the stream and then well-heeled boots crossing the stones of the bridge over their heads. There was a muffling, like clothes being adjusted, then they watched as a jet of piss shot out over their heads accompanied by a groan of relief. Owen looked at Thomas, who raised his eyes to heaven. His business complete, the Englishman strode back across the bridge.

  ‘Oh Mahoney, fill the canteen, would you?’ He then chuckled, ‘And be sure to do it upstream of the bridge.’

  ‘Yes sir, right ho.’

  Owen gasped as Thomas fumbled at his jacket and withdrew his knife. Owen shook his head vehemently, but Thomas hushed him. The driver appeared and clambered down the bank carrying a metal canteen. His back to them, he crouched by the river and allowed the water to gush into its narrow opening until it gurgled. He re-corked it, stood and stretched, gently massaging his lower back, then turned. He stopped dead on seeing them, his eyes startled, his mouth open. Suddenly he was clambering up the bank as though he’d beheld a spectre come to take him to his grave.

  ‘Sir! There are men! They have a knife!’

  ‘What men? Where are they?’

  ‘Under the bridge!’

  They hesitated before revealing themselves, until finally Owen shook his head and looked at his brother. ‘Put the knife away. They’re not soldiers.’

  Thomas reluctantly did as prompted and Owen stepped out from under the arch, his bundle of possessions dangling at his side, Thomas at his shoulder. Above them stood the Englishman, a pistol drawn, Mahoney at his side. The gent seemed nervous as though he feared being done to death by a band of Irish brigands. But when the brothers emerged the tightness in his features eased and he half-smiled.

  ‘It’s not men. It’s a couple of lads.’

  ‘I’m more of a man than the likes of you,’ Thomas replied sharply.

  The Englishman chuckled. ‘Perhaps you are indeed. Who are you? Are you going to the workhouse in Louisburgh?’

  ‘No sir,’ Owen replied, ‘we’re going to–’

  ‘Where we’re going,’ Thomas interrupted, ‘is none of your business.’ As he said this they climbed up the b
ank and stood directly facing the stranger, who still held the gun cocked at the ready. He was a man of maybe thirty; slim with long sideburns, a wide, thin moustache, and inquisitive eyes.

  Thomas nodded at the gun. ‘What are you afraid of? Two scrawny Irish lads?’

  The man tucked the pistol into a leather holster within the folds of his overcoat. ‘My name is James Tuke and I mean you no harm. I’m here to see for myself the effects of the famine and to report back in England. I merely wish–’

  ‘Tell them they’re pigs and murderers.’

  ‘Thomas!’ Owen counselled.

  Tuke remained unprovoked. ‘If I encounter any injustice or misdeeds I will indeed report them, as I have done on a previous visit.’ By now Tuke and the driver were clambering on to their car. He tipped his hat with practised politeness to the brothers, something Owen had never believed he’d see. ‘I wish you God speed, wherever the road takes you. I cannot give you food, but perhaps you can purchase some along the way.’

  He tossed a coin and Owen snapped it into his palm. He looked at the copper penny in his hand, stamped with the image and name of George IV. It was like a tiny treasure fallen from heaven and he looked back to Tuke to thank him. But Thomas seized the coin and called out, ‘Hey, Englishman!’

  Tuke looked around just as Thomas flung the coin back hard at him. He reacted quickly and seized it before it struck his face.

  ‘We don’t want your charity,’ Thomas said bitterly.

  Tuke frowned and turned away, and Mahoney flicked the whip to set the horse in motion.

  Owen fumed. ‘What’s wrong with you? He didn’t mean us any harm. And we need money.’